Many of you might be familiar with the Perform Better Summit. It is a three day event that takes place in three different cities nation wide. The first Summit took place this past weekend in Providence, RI. I was one of many presenters and proud to be there.

At these events there are many opportunities for the attendees and presenters to spend time and just talk outside of the lecture or hands on sessions. It might be in the hallway, at lunch, or during the evening just hanging out. This is when ideas are shared and expressed in more depth.

At each event, presenters have a room to relax in and grab a quick bit to eat in between sessions. This past weekend, I had just finished my lecture and headed to the presenters room to grab a water and sit down to unwind. In the room were tow other presenters: John Graham, a staple member and presenter for the NSCA. The other was Al Vermeil, a long time strength coach for the Chicago Bulls, as well as many other professional teams. ( a little trivia….he is the only strength coach to win a super bowl and a NBA championship). I found myself in private lecture and Al was the teacher.

There have been many Perform Better Summits where I have been in the presenters room with Al and many other top presenters, but this day happen to be one of the moments when Al was talking about an important topic. He was being a teacher and I was soaking it up. He was talking about the important of improving speed and power by training for speed and power. He used several examples of his days with the Michael Jordan and Horace Grant when they played for the Bulls. Al spoke about how he used explosive training methods to develop more power in his athletes. His basic message was, if you spend too much time in the slower, higher repetition training zones, then you could have a negative effect on the development of power.

The topic he was talking about wasn’t something new. It wasn’t information I didn’t know or hadn’t used myself in training my athletes. However, what Al did was to give studies and examples of programs he has used to produce results. He talked about the little topics that are hardly talked about like; body positions during the explosive jumps to get more impulse, how to test if athletes are ready power training or if they are still in need of strength. It was one of those things where you had to be there.

My point is, we are given little opportunities and we need to be ready to take advantage of them. While Al was talking I was glued to every word. I took advantage of the moment. Opportunities like that don’t come that often.

P. S. – Thanks to everyone I met and had the opportunity to share time with at the Perform Better Summit. I look forward to doing it again this June in Chicago!